BusinessQuests

Consultancy specializing in strategy, business development, commercial finance and digital transformation for owner-managed businesses and tech companies.

[BusinessQuests @businessquests]

Food for thought. https://t.co/Izdok3bWQ3

[BusinessQuests @businessquests]

Research funded by the public is what opens new paths, not private initiatives alone.

[Adam Butler @GestaltU]

Fun fact: The 1998 paper that introduced Google and PageRank to the world ends with this acknowledgment:

"Supported by the National Science Foundation under Cooperative Agreement IRI-9411306. Funding also provided by DARPA and NASA."

Sergey Brin was on an NSF Graduate Fellowship. Larry Page was a PhD student on the grant.

Google—now worth $2 trillion—exists because American taxpayers funded "the Stanford Integrated Digital Library Project."

Not a startup garage myth. A government grant.

Every time someone says public research funding "picks winners and losers" or "crowds out private innovation," remember: the most dominant technology company of the 21st century was incubated entirely with public money, inside a public university, by researchers on federal fellowships and grants.

The private sector didn't see it coming. VCs passed. The government funded it anyway—not because it would become Google, but because fundamental research into information retrieval seemed worth understanding.

That's the point. You can't predict which grants will change the world. You fund the science and let researchers explore.

The internet (DARPA). GPS (DoD). Touchscreens (CIA/NSF). mRNA vaccines (NIH). Google (NSF/DARPA/NASA).

Public investment in basic research isn't wasteful spending. It's the seed corn of the entire modern economy.

[French Response @FrenchResponse]

#Year4 🇺🇦

[French Response @FrenchResponse]

"We know that enduring peace cannot be bought at the cost of other people’s freedom."

Franklin D. Roosevelt, Annual Message to Congress, January 6, 1941

[Daractenus @Daractenus]

I know we don’t do facts anymore, but here’s the "dangerous and collapsing" EU that Elon Musk and MAGA influencers keep warning you about.

[BusinessQuests @businessquests]

The Coasean Singularity Delusion: Why AI Won't Dissolve Firms Into Frictionless Markets https://t.co/CYj8kEVayl

[Time Capsule Tales @timecaptales]

Dr. Jane Goodall filmed an interview in March 2025 with the understanding it would only be released after her death. This is her final message from it.

[Nassim Nicholas Taleb @nntaleb]

Lutnick is an uneducated BROKER. He has no idea about the notion of gain from trade.

America has one of the highest GPD per capita from switching to high added value per worker. By reversing to lower added value you end up destroying modern prosperity.

Like a family of doctors needing to have some members as cooks to "diversify".

[BusinessQuests @businessquests]

Genius marketing. People should now better than to irritate the otherwise peaceful and polite Canadians. Get your new MAGA hat now.

https://t.co/dGQy9xr5VF

[BusinessQuests @businessquests]

JP Morgan's bearish Tesla forecast isn't (only) about the impact of Musk's politics. The more concerning question is what happens to all the assets leveraged against Tesla stock if it really drops that far. Let alone the fact that the assets are becoming less productive when they are associated with negative goodwill. This is a textbook example of destruction of brand value.

[Simon Wardley @swardley]

JP Morgan says Tesla stock has a long way to go, reckons on $120 per share. That's would be brutal, 75% of value lost - https://t.co/xyKtmxN0fp ... Monday is going to be interesting.

[Simon Wardley @swardley]

Oh dear. What with the failing starships, it's just not going well ->

[BusinessQuests @businessquests]

We partner with organizations looking to thrive in a fast-evolving, connected economy, shaped by:

1️⃣ enabling technologies and practices—often bundled under the broad term digital. While this term can mean many things, our experience spans the full spectrum, including machine learning and what many now refer to as AI.

2️⃣ new approaches to management and strategy—drawing from science, design, and technology to drive real, actionable results, rather than relying on outdated frameworks that often fail to deliver meaningful impact.

3️⃣ a shifting business landscape—where geopolitical fragmentation and environmental constraints demand strategic foresight, something we’ve studied deeply over decades.

Much of our work remains confidential, but we occasionally share insights here, often as lines of code from our **Code of BusinessQuests**.

This time, we draw inspiration from outside the business world—competitive sports, avant-garde art, literature, and scientific research—where high performers navigate complexity with clarity and action.

One common challenge we see in organizations (and individuals) is the gap between their current state and their desired future. This gap can create anxiety, often leading to agitation, denial, avoidance, or paralysis, rather than meaningful action.

Here, the ethos of tennis champion Arthur Ashe offers a simple but powerful approach:

- Start where you are – Acknowledge the current reality, rather than masking discomfort with narratives that distort the truth. This requires deep situational awareness—not just static tools like SWOT, 5-Forces, BCG or Ansoff matrices, which capture only a fraction of reality. Hence our deep commitment to Wardley Maps and the OODA framework, which express the full depth and subtlety of relevant aspects of the business and help identify areas of leverage, territory you should protect, activities you should control, resources you should rent... and much more.

- Use what you have – Leverage existing resources and capabilities to maximize impact.

- Do what you can – Take purposeful action, orchestrating available resources to make real progress.

We’ve consistently found this mindset invaluable for navigating uncertainty, overcoming obstacles, and driving sustainable progress.

[Simon Wardley @swardley]

Before DOGE starts providing its "own" figures, I would suggest that US citizens might want to start downloading historic datasets / reports before these sites are switched off by the DOGE vandals ->

[BusinessQuests @businessquests]

Grok is better than the current administration at providing a fairly factual reply to this (only apparently) simple question.

https://t.co/kPYmgCBbHa

[Jean Quatremer @quatremer]

Amusant de voir à quel point la France a eu raison, en dépit des ricanements de nos partenaires et des institutions communautaires, sur à peu près tous les sujets géopolitiques et européens: réduire autant que possible la dépendance à l’égard des USA, défense commerciale et préférence UE, nucléaire, politique industrielle, défense européenne et j’en passe.

[sophia aram @SophiaAram]

« Le tort de Kamel Daoud n'est pas d'avoir écrit un récit qui ressemble à une histoire vraie, ça, c'est le prétexte. Ce n'est pas seulement de mettre au jour les horreurs de l'islamisme qui ronge son pays. Ce qui lui est reproché, par ceux qui l'accusent là-bas et le conspuent ici, c'est de refuser d'obéir à l'injonction de soumission à la dictature de la pensée. »
👏 @Berentrice @LePoint @daoud_kamel ✍️

[BusinessQuests @businessquests]

@topazlabs Starlight.

[OpenAI @OpenAI]

We just increased the memory limit in ChatGPT for Plus, Pro, and Team users by 25%.

[Simon Wardley @swardley]

Posts that haven't aged well.

Thank you DeepSeek ->

[BusinessQuests @businessquests]

First principles rethink of universities is required:

https://t.co/2gGDAsP78P